As Microsoft continues to bask in the glow of its HoloLens 2 unveiling and begins ramping up the hype to launch, Nreal and Vuzix are carving out their own niches in the AR hardware landscape.

Nreal continues to make waves with its forthcoming tethered smartglasses, and its founder took the time share some insight into his company's approach to AR wearables. Meanwhile, Vuzix established a new partnership this week that will grow its standing in the enterprise segment of AR and pave the way for the eventual advent of consumer AR.

But not all that virtually glitters in the AR industry is gold, though, as the denouement to Meta Company's tragic story crawls forward.

Nreal Founder Bullish on Tethered Smartglasses

If you've ever spent any serious time examining the Chinese tech startup world, you know that it moves fast — very fast. The tech startups hailing from Beijing and Shenzhen are moving so fast that they're now in serious competition with Silicon Valley.

The latest would-be competitor challenging Northern California's tech dominance, Beijing-based Nreal, is focused on augmented reality and has, in just a couple of years, made huge leaps toward taking AR mainstream. Nreal's founder and CEO, Xu Chi, a former engineer at Magic Leap, thinks he has the product that will normalize AR's migration from smartphone screen to a pair of wearables before Apple gets its rumored AR product off the launch pad.

Recently, after testing the Nreal Light product out, Next Reality had a chance to talk to Xu at length about the product's strengths and weaknesses, what the company's roadmap looks like, and how he views the state of the AR industry in the wake of constant change and cutting edge innovation...

Meta Gets More Bad News in Patent Infringement Case

In the latest update to the ongoing Meta Company patent infringement case, the court has responded to a request from the defendants, and the answer isn't good news.

As Next Reality reported earlier this month, John Sines, the chief financial officer for the old Meta Company team (the company's assets have since been sold to a new owner) asked the court for 45 days to find new counsel to represent them in the case.

REALITY BITES: Turmoil at Facebook! The company announced on Thursday that Chris Cox, chief product officer in charge of Facebook's apps (who posted his own goodbye letter), and Chris Daniels, head of WhatsApp, are departing the company, resulting in musical chairs of succeeding executives and roles atop the company's various departments. If that wasn't enough bad news, The New York Times reports that computer science students aren't so hot about working for Facebook.

Now that the dust has finally settled on Microsoft's big HoloLens 2 announcement, the company is circling back to offer more granular detail on some aspects of the device we still don't know about.

Aside from making some team members accessible for interviews, the company has also launched a video streaming series that delves into the intricacies of the HoloLens 2 and allows users and developers to ask more questions.

The first episode aired on Tuesday, and added a few important new details to the HoloLens 2 story related to security, audio, and hand tracking. Keep reading to learn more...

REALITY BITES: SXSW unveiled the winners of its annual Pitch competition for startups this week. The winner for the AR/VR category is (drumroll)...Healium, a company that gamifies stress treatment by enabling users to "heal" virtual worlds with their feelings via biometric readings.

It looks like it's cuffing season for AR hardware makers and telecommunications corporations.

With AT&T aligned with Magic Leap as its exclusive wireless retailer on the high-end AR side, Verizon has also reached a master reseller agreement with Vuzix, according to a filing with the Securities Exchange Commission.

Continue reading for more details on the agreement, including what Vuzix products Verizon will offer, who they will sell them to, and how the partnership could evolve over the long haul...

REALITY BITES: Move over VR, because AR is starting to make some waves in filmmaking as well. Debuting at the Tribeca Film Festival is Stealing Ur Feelings, an AR experience by Noah Levenson that uses facial recognition to interpret the audience's reactions to news headlines.

Every Friday, Next Reality reviews the latest headlines from the financial side of augmented and mixed reality. This weekly Market Reality column covers funding announcements, mergers and acquisitions, market analysis, and the like. Check out previous editions of Market Reality for more news you may have missed.